For grammar geeks, I checked.  It's crab apples, not crabapples.  Two words.

However you spell them, it's now the season!  During a visit home to Aroostook County last weekend, I was able to score an enormous bag full, intent on making Marjorie's crab apple pickles.  She calls them Spiced Crab Apples, but it's the same thing. 

I wrote about crab apple pickles last December for Down East magazine, and you can read about the experience here. 

As an aside, this essay was the first time I'd received hate mail in relation to something I'd written.  A cousin took issue with how I remembered our shared grandmother, and then flat-out called me a liar.  Not to me directly, to my publisher.  This cousin was grieving and needed to see our grandmother through the lens of a single person's experience.  I was reassured that it's normal, and I recalled the old fable about five blind men each feeling a different part of an elephant.  We all have our memories, and we all believe ours is the perspective that is most true.

That said, writers have a responsibility.  Call it kharma or the golden rule or simple decency:  be kind.  Be truthful, but be kind.  Readers are not stupid.  If you write with a vengeance or mean spirit, readers will pay more attention to the vitriol and less attention to your words.  Likewise, if your subjects are as simple and one-dimensional as those old spaghetti Westerns with white and black hats, that's not good either.  And most importantly, people generally don't ask to be written about.  That's a lesson I learned the hard way, so please be kind.

But anyway, I digress.  Crab Apples look like this:

A colander full of them looks like this:

Contrary to some folklore, they aren't poisonous.  They won't make you sick, but I challenge you to eat one straight.  It's a bitter taste that stretches miles beyond sour, and this recipe calls for four full cups of sugar to temper the taste.

Stick the cloves into the blossom end.  Like this:

Sugar, vinegar, cinnamon sticks in the pot.  Cook and add apples.  After ten minutes, place apples in jars and pour the syrup over the apples.  Caps on, a little hot water bath to seal, and the end result is a spicy, sweet, sour little taste of wonderful.

Or, as a friend once noted, "It's like Christmas in a single bite."

Indeed.

Challenge:  Pick a character from your project.  Choose a character you love or hate.  (It's important that your character be extreme.)  Now try this.  If your character is good, make him do something vile.  If your character is evil, write a redemptive quality.  It works for nonfiction, too.  Find a compassionate moment for your evil stepmother, or note a morally questionable decision made by your saintly grandfather.  Notice how vivid your writing becomes when you explore these depths.  Notice how much more engaged your readers become when they must decide for themselves who wears the white hat and who wears the black.

I'm a fan of improvisation, and all things being equal, I do very well with the punt.  That's one reason why I love, love, love Marjorie Standish recipes.  She offers up a basic guide that's open to many, many interpretations.

For instance, this simple recipe for clam cakes.  It involves two cups of clams, 1.5 cups of cracker crumbs, and two eggs.  Easy peasy and delicious.

As you can read, it's a pretty basic concept.  Mix, spoon into hot pan, cook, enjoy! 
That said, clams are expensive and time-consuming to steam, shuck, and chop.  (Yes, canned clams are an option, but they really don't taste much like fresh clams.) 

So, today I bought fresh haddock for $4.99 per pound at Free Range Fish and Lobster on Commercial Street, intending to substitute fish for clams.  (I also dropped a dollar in the Wharf Kitty Rescue Fund tin at the cash register counter. If you go, you should drop a dollar in the tin, too.  Wharf kitties need love.)

But back to the haddock.  Haddock is cheaper and easier to prepare than fresh clams, and fish cakes taste just as delicious.  I steamed approximately one pound of fresh haddock.

The fish is done when it flakes with a fork.  It is way, way over-cooked if you start to smell it in your kitchen.

Empty a sleeve of crackers, any kind, into a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin, wine bottle, cup, or your palm.  Add them to the fish, along with two eggs. Mix together until the cracker crumbs are combined, and the mixture is firm but moist. 

Marjorie just spoons the mixture into a hot oiled pan and flattens them, but I prefer to pre-shape the patties.  (They can be refrigerated, too, to get the mixture more solid.)

Oil into pan (Marjorie uses butter, but I like the olive oil I buy at LeRoux Kitchen.  The nice thing about LeRoux is that you can sample the oils and vinegars before you buy!), patties into pan once the oil is hot.  A little salt and pepper, flip when golden and crispy, and then drain on a paper towel. 

Earlier this morning, I bought rainbow chard (and cantaloupe, red potatoes, heirloom tomatoes, and lettuce) grown locally and sold at the Farmer's Market in Monument Square.

Et voila! Rainbow chard, clam cakes made with fish, and a dab of mayonnaise to serve alongside.  End of summer abundance.

Challenge: Find something familiar and trusted in the form of a chapter, poem, vegetable, or recipe and make one significant change in how you approach it.

I know most of the arguments, and the one that most personally resonates is "pigs are as smart as dogs."  It's a flawed argument and especially evident with my Australian Shepherd, Tobie.  Tobie is blessed with talents that include warming my feet on the couch while I read and a primal (pathological?) mission to prevent the mail man from doing harm to our home, but he was not blessed with brains.  If he was blessed with brains, he would easily distinguish between his food dish and the litter box.

That said, some animals do just fine without brains.

Back to Bacon.
I wish bacon wasn't made from pig.  My husband and I once had a philosophical discussion about Eve's apple not really being an apple.  "What  if," we hypothesized, "it wasn't fruit that God forbid, but meat?"  That honestly makes more sense, if you think about it.

So, bacon.  It's crispy.  It's delicious.  It comes in maple and pepper varieties. I love bacon.  I love bacon so much, I pretend it isn't really pig.  Bacon is, and I credit my friend Cynthia for the phrase, but bacon is my comfort meat. 

Bacon makes things better.
Marjorie Standish knew this.  That's why she advocated for Baconized Corn Bread.

It's a pretty standard corn bread recipe.  You mix it all up in a single bowl.

But the magic happens when you sprinkle bacon on top of the batter!  Marjorie said to just use raw chunks, but I cooked the bacon first.  I cooked it, as Marjorie would note, "short."  It was still gooey, but I rationalized that in the 20-25 minute baking time, it would crisp up just fine.

And I was right!  Crispy, delicious bacon cooked in cornbread!  It was amazing, and next time, I'll just use the raw bacon.  (Reminder: trust Marjorie.  She had no interest in poisoning her readers.) 

See how delicious this is?  Moist, crumbly corn bread topped with bacon and spread with butter!  So, so good.

When you live in Vacationland, you get summer company.  It's a fact.  I suspect it's the same for residents of Hawaii or Paris, too.  Family and friends seek you out during summer breaks in a way that is noticably absent in the cold, desolate winter months.

I don't mind.  I love company and the energy it brings into my home.  As long as company can handle my low housekeeping standards without judgment, they are most welcome!

Marjorie Standish welcomed company, too.

I have lots of thoughts on women's roles, and the weird seeking out of shared miseries that happens among women, but mostly I will note that Marjorie strikes me as an excellent housekeeper.  Because she was a Home Economics expert, I have a difficult time imagining her cakes going kerplunk, but I can easily imagine her as a charming hostess in spite of the situation.

While my cakes rarely go flat, I am a terrible housekeeper.  My tolerance for filth is immense, and I would much rather spend my time in activities that do not involve cleaning sprays.

That said, company season is upon me, and I've had to divert attention away from online reflection and toward other things.  I wish I could say those other things included a sparkling toilet and freshly washed curtains, but no.

I've been spending the past couple weeks with people I care about, doing things I enjoy.  That, I suspect, is the underlying message in Marjorie's poem.  Cake or no cake, things will go wrong.  The important piece is that friends will arrive regardless, and the best friends don't care if the tea is weak.

In the past couple weeks, I watched a movie with my husband (Midnight in Paris).  I enjoyed several birthday cakes, introduced my dear friends to some of Portland's best food (Miyake, The Chocolate Bar, Becky's Diner, husk cherries at the farmer's market, and Three Sons Lobster), discovered an old cocktail standard (French 75), renewed my driver's license, bought new pillowcases, and sat quietly in the quickly fading Maine summer season.

So here is my challenge.  Stop putting energy into pockets that are meaningless for you.  Put energy toward things you value.  Take a lesson from Marjorie Standish, even if it's a veiled one, and know that company will come regardless of good cake and strong tea.

Rhubarb.  Remember rhubarb?  As a kid, I would chew the stalks.  Raw, or coated in sugar.  It was always a big dilemma when wandering in fields or backyards: is that a rhubarb or a burdock patch?

(Remember burdocks?  Nature's Velcro.  So much fun to chuck, but very ouchy to pull from clothing, skin or hair.)

I love rhubarb.  I especially love rhubarb in the form of a daquiri, as served at Westbrook's Frog and Turtle, but, sadly, Marjorie Standish did not create a recipe for rhubarb daquiris. 

Marjorie does have a recipe for rhubarb crisp, and since rhubarb season is almost over, I chose this recipe as a tribute to the bittersweet experience that is Maine summer. 

She calls for four cups of rhubarb, but that always seemed like too little, so I just go with pan size.  Fill up the pan with rhubarb, cut into chunks.

I like rhubarb tart, so I use half as much sugar (one cup instead of two), a few spoonfuls of flour, and a few shakes of ground ginger. Nevermind with a separate bowl, just mix it around with a fork or fingers to coat.

Also, I am not a professional cook, but here is my fun cooking trick.  When making a pastry, biscuit, or topping that calls for cutting flour into butter, just use a box grater or Microplane. 

See?  Then you can just smoosh it around with a fork, and voila!  Instant topping. No need to dirty a pastry cutter.

Spoon it on top, and pop in a 375 degree oven.

As my yearlong sabbatical nears its end, and I begin my job search in earnest, rhubarb crisp is a good professional metaphor.  Some days are just too sour to be palatable, and some days are too sweet to trust.  But with the right mix and a little patience, some days turn out just right.

Happy birthday to me!  Happy birthday to me!
Banana bread.  It is one of the most loved recipes in my book.  (Note the crusty stains on the page.)  It's a comfort food that freezes well and translates to funerals, housewarmings, potluck suppers, and baby showers with ease.

It is also very, very easy.  My professional baker friends will laugh at me, but I'm a fan of one-bowl recipes.  Electric mixers confuse me, and I'd much rather rinse off a spoon than sort out where the attachments go.  Plus, it's authentic.  A bowl, a spoon (in this case a fork), and a pan.

Isn't the bowl pretty?  I have an intense love of all things Monroe Salt Works, and this bowl was a gift from my friend Anne.  She came for a visit, and we spent a rainy afternoon in the Old Port where she bought me this beautiful present.

(We also spent a rainy afternoon in London once, but that is a story for another recipe.)

All the ingredients go into a bowl (flour, baking soda, sugar, eggs, butter instead of shortening, and mushy bananas), and yes, Martha Stewart would cringe at my methods.  Just sort of put rough amounts in a bowl and mash it all together with a big fork.  That's the beauty of improvised home cooking--it usually works out in the end.

Then pour into a greased pan.  I used Pam, but I'm not sure that was an option for Marjorie Standish.  (Fun fact: aerosal oil sprays were patented in 1957.)  As a little girl, I would grease pans with the back side of the margarine stick paper-or the actual margarine stick itself.

Bake at 350 degrees for an hour.

Now come sit with me for a little bit.  What food do you remember from your childhood?

One of the nicest things people say to me is that my observations feel like kitchen conversations.  I always imagine sitting at my cluttered little table with a cup of something hot and a plate of something delicious between old friends.

With that in mind, I started thinking about a project for my 38th birthday.  (For 37, I chronicled 365 days on Facebook.  Each day I noted a position of strength, and these included publication credits, the birth of my nephew, a new dress, and a road trip to Nashville.  On particularly gruesome days, I noted the pleasure of basic hygiene or the taste of bacon.  I encourage people to note the strength in their lives as a regular practice.  It can be illuminating, and the discipline to do something for 365 consecutive days is good.  It can lead to discipline in other aspects of life, I promise.)

For 38, I plan to combine this blog's professional advice with my love of cooking and my unyielding Maine identity.  (See above:  kitchen conversations.)  For those of you with connections to the state, you may be familiar with Marjorie Standish.  She is, in a phrase, Maine's Julia Child.  Her Cooking Down East is a staple in Maine kitchens, and I remember my mother's handwritten Marjorie Standish recipes on little pink index cards in a metal recipe box.  Molasses doughnuts.  Clam chowder.  Tomato aspic.  (Ass-pick.  It's true.)  Iconic, homestyle food prepared with little fuss and pretention, all accompanied by Marjorie Standish's reflections and occasional moralizing.  I loved thumbing through those recipe cards, and I loved it even more when Trav's Aunt Arvilla gave us the cook books on our wedding day ten years ago. 

It's hard to read, but she wrote "My gift to you will help you to remember Maine no matter where your life's work takes you."

So for this, my 38th year, I will cook my way through my stained and dog-eared copy of the original Cooking Down East.  (With apologies to the publisher, but not the new version of the book.  While I appreciate the publisher's offerings, to include my own little novel, Marjorie Standish is an icon that needs no embellishment and to modernize her world view is, in my opinion, a small heresy.)  

With that, I invite you all into my cluttered virtual kitchen.  Welcome to a year of irregular updates as I attempt to cook my way through a significant portion of Marjorie Standish's legacy--along with thoughts on writing, publishing, life advice, and anything else that might interest me that particular morning.

With much love from Aunt Arvilla.